Life is Strange: Episode One - Chrysalis

Metascore

TechSpot Metascore

Excellent:

8

Good:

15

Average:

1

Bad:

2

It’s very tempting to dismiss Life is Strange out of hand as the same pretentious pabulum that it emulates, but the affectations of hipster cinema prove essential to its narrative goals. DONTNOD’s sophomore effort aims to capture the voice of today’s youth, and outside of a few heavy-handed moments it succeeds.

Expert reviews and ratings

Teenage years. An often excruciatingly awkward period of your life where you might frequently find yourself wishing you had a rewind button to retry more embarrassing conversations. But what if you got exactly that?Dontnod's episodic adventure Life is...

It's easily the best conceived character partnership since that of Lee and Clementine in the first season of The Walking Dead, and its nuance and earnestness helps it power through the odd bit of cloying sentimentality, or a wince-inducing use of...

Life is Strange suffers from awful voice acting and writing that doesn’t do its characters and world justice. Dontnod has created great scenarios for a story I’m eager to learn more about, but the moment-to-moment interactions with people in Max Caulfield’s life are pretty painful.

This is the thing about popular commercial art. It can make mistakes and it can fall short of the ideals of critics, but it can still be fun and admirable. By the end I felt like the inhabitants of Arcadia had stories to share that I wanted to hear.

It’s very tempting to dismiss Life is Strange out of hand as the same pretentious pabulum that it emulates, but the affectations of hipster cinema prove essential to its narrative goals. DONTNOD’s sophomore effort aims to capture the voice of today’s youth, and outside of a few heavy-handed moments it succeeds.

The next episode will surely define what Dontnod is out to accomplish, but Life is Strange’s introduction is a good look at the characters and dilemmas. It did its job of getting me interested. I have some minor concerns about how original the subject matter will turn out to be, but the focus on realistic problems is refreshing and the care put into Maxine’s world and the relationship-building holds plenty of promise.

That having been said, if you are a fan of point-and-click adventures (or those Fighting Fantasy books from yesteryear) and a sucker for an intriguing, atmospheric yarn you'll be right at home here. In fact, it may be just the sort of entertainment...

It's difficult to think of a way to convincingly recommend Life is Strange without including a multitude of caveats. It's an interactive drama, but the story isn't always well-written and the dialogue is frequently clumsy. It strikes at an audience...